The Boston Consulting Group and Google Digital Academy have decided to partner up and launch a new industry-wide initiative: Talent Revolution. The initiative aims at supporting leading companies with growing their digital maturity, with a focus on marketing skills.

The Google Digital Academy has been established to help Google’s agency and client partners build digital skills and capabilities in the marketing industry. The Academy works both independently and with education partners to run a range of courses, from beginner to advanced, one-day long to six months, part time and full time.

Talent RevolutionTo help company leaders enhance their digital skills, the Google Digital Academy and consulting firm The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have decided to team up, and with the support of around 30 leading companies*, launch the Talent Revolution. The first phase consists of an annual survey of digital-marketing capabilities across industries, after which each participating company** will receive its own digital-skills ‘health check’, showing the company’s performance against the industry’s average. The results of the survey will subsequently be used to develop a new Digital-Skills Index and an annual report that will provide insight into cross-industry digital capabilities. Google Digital Academy and BCG will, based on the information, identify key gaps in capabilities and a establish a learning curriculum to help companies build their digital skills.

“Marketers themselves recognise that there is a gap in digital skills: 82% of those surveyed recently told us they think so. The Talent Revolution initiative is bringing together the best industry advisors and representatives to address this gap and make sure that marketers become the driving force behind future business success,” explains Shuvo Saha, Director of Google Digital Academy.

Dominic Field, Partner at BCG, adds: “One of the big problems that advertisers face is that they do not know what they don’t know when it comes to digital marketing. The annual Talent Revolution survey will help them identify where there are gaps in their digital capabilities. The Academy will help them raise their games to make more efficient and effective investment decisions.”

* Around 30 organisations are participating in the Talent Revolution and have assisted in the initial phase, including Tesco, Unilever, P&G, Vodafone, the UK’s Government Communication Service, and Cancer Research UK. In addition, a consortium of partners consisting of the Knowledge Engineers, the IAB, ISBA, the IPA, the Marketing Society, and the Marketing Academy, is supporting the initiative.

** This applies to every company that participates with eight or more professionals.